Project by: Allison Byrne (9th Grade), Avery Rice (9th Grade)
Project Advisor: Kara Luce
Student(s)’s Advisor(s): Jacqueline and Shafeiq
Description of the Project:
Coronavirus has affected every part of our lives. After living through a pandemic for over a year, we would like to study the vaccines and see what scientists have been working on. We hope to use this opportunity to have a better understanding of what’s happening in our world right now and what the future of science holds. We want to learn what has gone into making these vaccines, how they were developed, and how they affect the people who get them. We hope that by the end of the project we will have a complete understanding of the vaccines and how they affect the human body. We will have a visual aspect of our final project to share with the larger community in order to easily represent the vaccines. We will also include a write up which will dive deeper into the topic for anyone who wants to learn further.
Final Product (e.g., documents, images, video, audio, poster, display, etc.):
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Open in new tab Final Reflection on Learning:
Throughout this project we learned about the importance of spacing out our work and doing thorough research. We knew that in order to gain a strong understanding of the vaccines, we would need to gather a lot of information. We started off by researching the immune system in general. We read parts of the Openstax Microbiology Textbook. Then we looked for articles specific to the COVID vaccines. These included articles on how they work, how they were developed so quickly, and why they are administered into the arm. Our ability to space out this research allowed us to do thorough work and develop a clear understanding of the vaccines. Finally, we successfully answered our initial questions: How do the COVID vaccines work? What makes the vaccines different from each other? How do our bodies respond to the vaccines?
Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):
In the past few weeks, we have begun research on the immune system by studying the Openstax Microbiology Textbook. This helped us develop a deeper understanding of how the body reacts to vaccination on a cellular level. We focused on the innate and adaptive immune responses and the body’s process of developing antibodies. We have been meeting with our project mentor each week and we have reached out to a few people who can help us further our work as we study the vaccines. In the next week, we will meet with a student who is qualified to administer the vaccine to discuss his experiences so far working in the field. We will also begin to study the different types of vaccines and how each specifically works.
Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):
For the past few weeks, we have been working to expand our knowledge on how the vaccines work, and the many differences between them. We have been focusing mainly on the three vaccines currently available in the United States–Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen. Along with that, we learned about the three main types of vaccines: mRNA, Protein Subunit, and Vector vaccines. We researched how the vaccines work to protect the body and how our immune system works with the SARS-CoV-2 proteins. We also researched why the shot is inserted into the deltoid and the importance of intramuscular vaccines. Finally, we learned that the COVID vaccines were developed and put to use extremely fast. While some have taken years, even decades, the COVID vaccines have gone through most of the stages in under a year. We looked into how this was possible. In the next week, we hope to develop a more physical or tangible representation of the vaccine and how it works.
Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):
Over the past week we began to summarize our findings and put them on the poster for our final project. We also finished up our research. We read more articles about how the vaccines were developed and why this happened so quickly. We also looked at the previous research that had been done on the genetic codes for the SARS virus. We learned that because this research had been done, scientists already had the genetic code for COVID-19. Therefore, Vaccinologists could apply this code and develop the COVID vaccines faster. This week we also started to reflect on the work we’ve done and how we have grown from this project. We realized how much we learned about research and working together as a group.
